Research topic
Impact of wind propulsion on the propeller and power system:
Wind propulsion on modern merchant ships can reduce fuel consumption and hence reduce the emission of greenhouse gasses. The thrust produced by wingsail or Flettner rotor, the most mature technologies, will change the operational range, and energy efficiency of the propeller and hybrid power systems.
Goal
The goal is to provide coupled models suitable for the selection, design and optimization of hybrid propulsion and power systems. Today, multiple models exist for wind propulsion, propeller, and power plants. However, their efficiency while working together is not well known.
Wind propulsion creates thrust mainly by using the lift, i.e., the force normal to the incoming apparent wind velocity. The apparent velocity is a vector sum of the ship velocity and the velocity of the true wind. Creating the thrust mostly from the lift generates an unavoidable side force, which pushes the ship sideways and causes additional hull resistance. Hence, the hybrid propulsion performance will depend on the ship velocity, wind conditions, the hull hydrodynamics, the side force to thrust ratio of the sail or rotor, the proportion of the thrust generated from the wind, and the flexibility of the propeller and hybrid power system to handle additional thrust.
Scope
Develop medium-fidelity wind propulsion system model
Evaluate a coupled hybrid propulsion machinery system
Adopt/include added hydrodynamic ship resistance due to the side force
Limitations
Limited validation of the coupled system model, most likely only numerical
The result is a set of multiple promising designs of the hybrid propulsion machinery
Coordinator Role:
Dražen will facilitate the collaboration between Ph.D. students in WP 2-4